Week 7: Reflections

Hello friends,



This week has once touched upon a very important aspect of communicative language teaching - learner autonomy. Autonomy may mean different things to different people as is clear in the article by Dimitrios Thanasoulas, but one thing is common at the core of the concept of learner autonomy – independence on the part of the learner. But Samuel P-H Sheu has pointed out “that learning autonomy of learner or teacher depends more on the teaching system as a whole rather than on an individual teaching situation…”. Moreover, the ‘interconnectedness’ of teacher-learner autonomy as discussed in the conversation between Richard Smith and Andy Barfield is something that bothers the teachers here in India also. When the teachers do not enjoy autonomy and work under great restrictions and pressures, learner autonomy is a tall order to achieve.



In India, learner autonomy is still an alien concept as our education system, be it primary school, high school or college education, is still very conservative so far as teaching methods are concerned. Barring some metropolitan centers, we largely depend on the teacher being the ‘sage on the stage’ philosophy. Things have started changing, but we still have a long way to go.



Readings on One-computer Classroom are a treasure house for teachers like me who are teaching in technologically deprived situations. Though things are changing now and we hope the scenario will be better within a couple of years, still using one computer in a classroom becomes challenging. A lot of preparation goes into making the lesson worthwhile. But we cannot sit idle cursing the unfavorable conditions. We have to keep trying until things become better.

Wallwisher is something that I did not know about.

Learning and Teaching With the Web and 19 Interesting Ways to Use Wall Wisher

provide useful tips for using Wallwisher in the one-computer classroom. I’ll surely use tips for teaching Grammar that I learnt at Sean Banville's Blog.





Deborah Healey’s Tech Tips proved very useful as it illustrates ways of using the two most commonly used softwares to be used more effectively in the classroom, namely Microsoft Word and Power Point.

Deadline for submitting final projects is fast approaching. I know everybody is working hard to make their projects successful. Goodluck to all of you!



Happy learning!



Vinita.